


Family Defense

by sunryder



Series: Big Short Fills [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Child Abuse, F/M, Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 14:10:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12483440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunryder/pseuds/sunryder
Summary: Ida Collins Carbonell didn't give a damn about Howard Stark's influence, no one raised a hand against her grandson and got away with it.





	Family Defense

**Author's Note:**

> For Rough Trade Big Short  
> Prompt: Ass

The secret to happiness was marrying a plain man. He would always be grateful that his pretty wife had condescended to marry him, and would spend the rest of his life conveying that gratitude. Every high society daughter born since the world began knew that the surest way to find yourself divorced was to marry a handsome man. (Handsome and charming was even worse.)

However, since rich families tended to live under the delusion that all of their daughters were pretty, no one had developed a stratagem for what a plain girl ought to do to secure marital bliss. Logic suggested that they simply ought to look for a man so homely that despite her own lackluster features she might still be prettier, but Ida Collins had never been one to subscribe to the logic of the masses. Particularly because Ida had never met anyone on the East coast or the West, Europe, the Mediterranean, or even the Far East who was both plainer than she was and that she could marry without it being a pathetic condescension that would taint the Collins family influence for decades. Ida would rather have a child out of wedlock than succumb to that.

So, Ida Collins decided that if she was going to be doomed to an unfaithful husband, she was going to get the handsomest damn bastard she could find so that at least her heirs wouldn’t have to deal with this nonsense for a few generations.

At the ripe old age of 34 – and yes, that was old in 1928 – Ida Collins got Gabriel Carbonell (25, Brazilian mother, English steel magnate of a father) rip-roaring drunk. The man pledged his undying love and proposed. In her wisdom, Ida had declared, “Really?” at the top of her lungs, summoning the attention of the entire party. Gabriel had climbed on top of their spindly little table and announced to the whole room that he was getting married. And well, no matter how he might have felt in the morning, there was no coming back from that. They were married two months later.

And yes, Gabriel spent the rest of their marriage bouncing from bed to bed, but he brought home no diseases, fathered no children, and while there was no love in their marriage, there was respect. Gabriel’s name was the one on all the paperwork for their family businesses, and Ida was the one calling the shots. Gabriel was the public face of their enterprise, smoothing her blunt edges while Ida pointed him in the direction of maximum profit. (Ida was also the one who had hired the attorney to write their pre-nup and had a black box of material that she would use to ruin Gabriel if he ever thought of divorce. Respect didn’t equal stupidity.)

They had a happy marriage, better still, a _smart_ marriage that produced one stunning and tender-hearted child. Maria had her father’s brain for business – that is to say, none – but she had his way with people. However, because you never could quite tell how a parent might influence their children, Maria could make them all smile and laugh as she was picking them apart to determine what made them tick. How Ida saw businesses and Gabriel saw bed partners, Maria saw peoples. Not the individuals, mind you, but their cultures. Gabriel took their Maria on a grand tour of South America, she spoke a dozen languages – three of them dead – and was well on her way to curating at the British Museum when she met Howard Stark, may his name be ever cursed.

They’d known one another a week when Maria Collins Carbonell came home and told her parents that she was madly in love and was determined to marry. Her parents lost their minds. Maria swore up and down that Howard loved her for her brain – as if the upstart slut could see anything beyond Maria’s breasts, but there was nothing to be done. Maria was, in the most unfortunate ways, still her mother’s daughter. They were married within the month, and then came over a decade of frosty silence between them.

It would undoubtedly have gone on much longer had Maria not turned up on their front step with tiny Tony in her arms – he would always be small for his age – and a bright purple bruise across his cheek.

Ida didn’t need to ask, and Gabriel did enough furious cursing for the both of them. He wrapped his arms around his daughter and grandson and littered them both with kisses, leaving Ida with a glower that swore this was one of those rare times he wouldn’t temper her fury. Ida Collins had re-written the rules to get her husband, and she’d be damned if she let her family be crushed under the weight of those rules she held in such disregard.    


End file.
